Links & Resources

Dictionaries

If you're looking for the Standard Southern British English pronunciation of a word, then this is your best bet:

Head to google.co.uk and type in 'define [word]' – this gives you an audio example and transcription sourced from the Oxford Dictionary.

Real Life Examples Using Youglish

A brilliant little website, Youglish lets you search the whole of YouTube for a specific word or phrase you want to hear pronounced.

It often returns thousands of examples.

You can select various accents, including speakers from the UK. You can slow down, repeat and skip each example, and there is a transcription underneath.

Here's one I used recently with a client who was working on her natural fluency by using a contracted form of words like 'have' more often:

Youglish: "people have been" examples (UK accent)

My clients find it really useful!

Text To Speech Using AI

You can use highly realistic voices using tech from ElevenLabs.

I used the Standard Southern British English (SSBE) voice of 'George' for the sentence examples in my free schwa resources here.

If you need a female voice speaking in SSBE, give 'Alice' a try. Alternatives include Daniel and Lily.

You can get General American accents from Brian and Jessica and many others.

Charlie is Australian. 

If you need a female Australian voice, or any other accent, you'll need to create a free account with ElevenLabs.

Once logged in, you can head to the Library to search and filter for the accent you want.

If you can't find one, you can even try to create your own voice by prompting the AI on accent, gender and character.

Word of warning: Based on my experience, I would not rely on the voice generator tool for accuracy of accent.

Finding Accent Samples For Actors

If you're an actor or voiceover artist looking to learn a new accent for a role, the following resources might help you navigate the noise of the web and find the accent samples you need to begin your work:

Hear Your Script Spoken Aloud With AI

See the entry above about ElevenLabs: you can choose a pre-made voice from the Library which speaks in your target accent.

Simply copy & paste whatever text you want to hear, and the AI-generated voice will read it out to you.

IDEA

International Dialects of English Archive. What a brilliant idea: a map-based search with voice samples and in-depth analysis. Thanks to Paul Meier and his team.

Local radio stations & podcasts

Look for local radio stations. Often individual stations have different podcasts based on subject or show, so you can look for the ‘talky’ ones.

For younger speakers, look for chart music. For older speakers, look for stations/shows playing older hits, classical music, or chat. Traffic, weather and financial reports are often great. Always check where the presenters/DJs are from though.

You can use google, but you can also search for Wikipedia Lists of stations – that’s how I found the first clip from CKDU FM (here).

A note about university radio stations: they’re great for their specific locations, but bear in mind the speakers are students, who could be from absolutely anywhere. Hospital radio is more illusive but could be a goldmine.

YouTube

Search for local radio stations, news and TV. My second sample was found in this way.

YouTube is great because, as I mentioned in Part 1, you get to see what their lips, cheeks and jaw are doing – and how they’re feeling.

Accent Tag

Another thing to search for on YouTube is ‘accent tag’, a movement started by … who knows, but thanks if you’re reading! I believe it works in the same way as the infamous ‘neck nomination’ and the brilliant ‘no makeup selfie’ nomination trend raising money for Cancer Research. Though often people just put up their Accent Tag without being nominated.

With Accent Tag, your subject will speak out a specific list of words and answer questions for more info on dialect, such as, “What do you call your grandparents?”. Sometimes speakers will even instruct you on how to speak in their accent. This can be incredibly helpful, but take it with a pinch of salt: tricks on how to master accents are very subjective and different things work for different people.

Celebrities

Most Wikipedia entries for a city or locality include a list of famous people from that area. Actors are best, especially if you plan on using the accent in a performance: how is this actor’s accent delivered in an ‘acting’ context?

imdb

‘Foreign’ cinema. Get searching.